District 9 - 7/10
After watching Elysium the other night, I was intrigued to see this, as I've heard nothing but great things about it and I wanted to see if my opinion of Elysium would change after seeing this. To be honest, it hasn't much. Elysium is still pretty great. I'm actually really disappointed I wasn't wowed or had my mind blown with District 9.
First off, I want to say that in no way was this a bad film -- obviously by my rating. It is pretty good, especially as a feature film debut by new director Neill Blomkamp. I enjoyed the documentary type of perspective/narration it took, as it was something different for once, that you don't often get in sci-fi films or other movies for that matter. The effects and designs were still pretty impressive, especially after realizing the total cost for the film was only $30mil! Many movies these days still can't seem to be that good with even quadruple that budget. Goes to show you that big budgets aren't always required to make good movies.
What I didn't like about this film though was the storyline and the shoddy development of the main character. (Pretty much the only character, since the film focuses primarily on him.) There were still quite a few plotholes, but now it's gotten me thinking that rather blaming Blomkamp for focusing more on effects and direction of the story as a whole, maybe this is just his style of writing. In both Elysium and District 9, he seemed to lay down the foundation and structure for both stories, and would start to build them, but only to never finish the job. It's all very open-ended, and I can't say it's something I totally enjoy. While I don't always have a problem with cliffhangers or loose ties and having to use my imagination, Blomkamp seems to leave
too much to the imagination. I kinda feel bad for calling it "shoddy development" for a character, but I really don't know how else to describe it. I felt like the main character seemed to jump rather than develop gradually. In the beginning of the movie, I thought he was kind of a douche to the alien refugees, and then before I know it, he's joining with one and becoming his ally. In no way is this directed towards Sharlto Copley, because he did a great job with his character. It's just that I prefer complex storylines and details and well-rounded, deep characters with some sort of story or foundation. I know this wasn't exactly a movie to showcase a character's backstory so much as it was taking the "now" and showing how that character goes about from what happens, but still I think a better job could have been done developing that character to what he eventually became.
Overall, I feel like this film was
way overrated, but it was still good and certainly worth a watch. It shows what both Neill Blomkamp and Sharlto Copley have to offer on screen and they both have very long careers ahead of them, which I'm looking forward to. I may not be a fan of his writing, but Blomkamp has talent as a director.
I didn't mean to write a review, haha. These films have just gotten me thinking is all. It's good to find new actors and directors to take interest in.
